Explore the vast range of titles available.

Twelve-year-old Rose Brutigan has grown seven inches in the last eight months. She's always been different from her twin brother, Thomas, but now she towers over him in too many ways. The gap in their interests continues to widen as well. Musically talented Rose is focused on winning the upcoming Bach Cello Suites Competition, while happy-go-lucky Thomas has taken up the challenge of growing a giant pumpkin in the yard of their elderly neighbor, Mr. Pickering. But when a serious accident changes the course of the summer, Rose is forced to grow and change in ways she never could have imagined. Along the way there's tap dancing and classic musicals, mail-order worms and neighborhood-sourced compost, fresh-squeezed lemonade, the Minnesota State Fair--and an eclectic cast of local characters that readers will fall in love with.--Provided by Publisher.

Parents play a crucial role in facilitating their children’s participation in extracurricular music activities. Guided by the framework of concerted cultivation, this survey study conducted with Hong Kong parents investigates (1) the types of extracurricular music activities in which their three- to eight-year-old children participate, (2) the importance parents attribute to music education and its correlation with key demographic factors, and (3) the predictive relationship between the importance parents attribute to music education and their children’s music participation. A self-designed survey was completed by 430 parents. Descriptive statistics, correlation, and binary logistic regression were conducted. Children’s participation rate in extracurricular music activities was found to be low. While younger children tended to engage in collaborative and unstructured activities, older children participated more in individual and guided activities. The importance attributed by parents to music education was relatively high and correlated with their background and family demographics. The higher the parents rated the importance of music education, the more likely they were to have signed up or intended to sign up their children for music activities. This study offers insights into children’s extracurricular music participation, highlights parental roles in children’s music education, and underscores the necessity of educating parents about the importance of music education.

In K-12 schools, classes are forced to transform online due to the class suspension amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Educators began to design alternative ways to conduct some meaningful learning activities for their students. However, not all subject disciplines could be easily transformed online, especially for those requiring much social interaction and creation processes. In this article, we explore the learning processes through learning Shubailan, a form of music folk-talk-singing, with a mobile instrument application called muyu in an online flipped classroom among 122 secondary school students in Hong Kong. The opportunities can encourage students to learn music theories and instruments about Shubailan, and create a Shubailan piece through 6-lesson music learning. To gain more online face-to-face time for collaboration, flipping the online classroom is adopted in this study to engage students in lesson preparations via preassigned recorded videos and collaborative activities during face-to-face online lessons. In this study, a mixed research method was employed with the use of a learning satisfaction survey, teachers’ observations and semi-structured interviews. We found that this strategy could effectively motivate students to learn music and improve their music knowledge in Shubailan. This article presents evidence of implementing the online flipped classroom approach to enhance students’ satisfaction and knowledge acquisition throughout Shubailan music making processes, and offers recommendations for online music educators. Results provide a set of innovative pedagogical approaches to teach music in an online alternative mode during the difficult times.

The global pandemic caused by the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) in spring 2020 resulted in schools moving to remote learning (RL) models for the remainder of the academic year. The purpose of this study was to examine the practices, experiences, and perspectives of elementary and secondary school band directors in relation to RL during this period. Directors (N = 462) responded to survey questions related to several aspects of RL, including (a) technologies and materials, (b) activities and assessments, (c) student participation, (d) the challenges of teaching remotely, and (e) the extent to which experiences varied among participants in low-poverty versus high-poverty schools and at the elementary/middle school level versus high school level. I also examined (f) the conditions and practices of programs that experienced both high and consistent levels of student participation. Data indicated that the COVID-19 shutdown created many challenges for directors, particularly in schools with higher poverty levels and/or in rural locations. However, RL also created opportunities for instrumental teachers to incorporate into curricula (a) a wider range of technology; (b) more of a focus on individual musicianship; (c) lessons in music theory, history, and culture; and to a lesser extent, (d) student creativity through composition and arranging.

PurposeThis study aims to determine whether university students are successfully acquiring or improving skills related to teamwork through a variety of extra-curricular activities, such as sports, music, volunteering, international group work experiences and professional practices.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive statistics have been calculated to evaluate the normal behaviour of the variables. Accidental sampling was used via a cross-curricular study with a quasi-experimental design. An analysis of means was performed using the Student's t-test.FindingsThe results show the students to have highly developed interpersonal and communication skills, followed by adaptation and decision-making skills. The lowest scores corresponded to coordination and leadership skills. On the other hand, a significant correlation was established between extra-curricular activities and the acquisition of essential teamwork skills.Originality/valueThis study can confirm the important relation between extra-curricular activities and the acquisition of the teamwork skills that play a vital role in the overall development of our students, as well as for their integration into the job market, with particular emphasis on the acquisition of leadership skills which students are most lacking in, but which have shown to improve with any of the proposed activities. The promotion of the extra-curricular activities by the University, could greatly support our students' soft skills acquisition and complement their education.

Active engagement in music has numerous academic and social benefits for young children and music-making is included in many early childhood standards and preschool curricula. The purpose of this article is to provide quality resources for classroom teachers to use in providing music-making activities for young children, ages 3–5. Although teachers may use music in their classrooms, we provide resources and suggestions for more intentional and extended integration of music-making. Specifically, we identify best practices for preschool music education based on key standards and research as well as with common music pedagogies. We then turn to concrete examples of how teachers can implement these music best practices throughout the entire preschool day. We provide ideas and resources for whole-group activities, focusing on choice-time/center activities and ways to incorporate music activities in other academic areas as these seem to be of greater need for teachers. Finally, we use the stated best practices to review the alignment of a sample of commercially available preschool music curricula as an additional support for teachers.

The aim of the present study was to investigate and compare the frequency of the implementation of music improvisation activities in music lessons by classroom teachers and subject teachers teaching music in the fourth and fifth grade in Slovenian primary schools. We also explored the teachers’ sense of competence to implement music improvisation activities, reasons for the infrequent inclusion of such activities and solutions for more frequent inclusion. A descriptive nonexperimental method of research was used, collecting data with a questionnaire. The study found that teachers occasionally carry out music improvisation activities, most often rhythmic improvisation. The results showed no differences between the frequency of improvisation activities between classroom teachers and subject teachers. However, subject teachers do feel more competent to perform music improvisation activities than classroom teachers and there was a weak correlation between the sense of competence and the frequency of improvisation activities in music lessons. Teachers cite a lack of time, knowledge and self-confidence as the key reasons for the infrequent implementation of music improvisation activities. They see solutions for the more frequent inclusion of music improvisation activities in additional music improvisation training and changes in the music curricula, advocating for more flexible and broadly defined learning objectives. Due to the small sample size, the results are not generalisable, but they do provide an insight into the current state of the integration of music improvisation activities in music lessons in the fourth and fifth grade of primary school. Namen te raziskave je bil preučiti in primerjati pogostost izvajanja dejavnosti glasbene improvizacije pri pouku glasbene umetnosti med učitelji razrednega pouka in učitelji predmetnega pouka, ki poučujejo predmet glasbene umetnosti v četrtem in petem razredu slovenskih osnovnih šol. Raziskali smo tudi občutek kompetentnosti učiteljev za izvajanje dejavnosti glasbene improvizacije, razloge za redko vključevanje teh dejavnosti in rešitve za pogostejše vključevanje. Uporabljena je bila deskriptivna neeksperimentalna metoda raziskovanja, pri čemer smo podatke zbrali z vprašalnikom. Raziskava je pokazala, da učitelji občasno izvajajo dejavnosti glasbene improvizacije, najpogosteje ritmično improvizacijo. Rezultati niso pokazali razlik v pogostosti improvizacijskih dejavnosti med učitelji razrednega in predmetnega pouka. Kljub temu se učitelji predmetnega pouka čutijo kompetentnejše za izvajanje dejavnosti glasbene improvizacije kot učitelji razrednega pouka, med občutkom kompetentnosti in pogostostjo izvajanja improvizacijskih dejavnosti pri pouku glasbene umetnosti pa se je pokazala šibka korelacija. Učitelji kot ključne razloge za redko izvajanje dejavnosti glasbene improvizacije navajajo pomanjkanje časa, znanja in samozavesti. Rešitve za pogostejše vključevanje dejavnosti glasbene improvizacije vidijo v dodatnem usposabljanju v glasbeni improvizaciji in spremembah učnega načrta za glasbeno umetnost v osnovni šoli, pri čemer se zavzemajo za prožnejše in širše opredeljene učne cilje. Zaradi majhnosti vzorca rezultati niso posplošljivi, vendar nudijo vpogled v aktualno stanje vključevanja dejavnosti glasbene improvizacije pri pouku glasbene umetnosti v četrtem in petem razredu osnovne šole.

Purpose: Speech-in-noise tests and suprathreshold auditory evoked potentials are promising biomarkers to diagnose cochlear synaptopathy (CS) in humans. This study investigated whether these biomarkers changed after recreational noise exposure. Method: The baseline auditory status of 19 normal-hearing young adults was analyzed using questionnaires, pure-tone audiometry, speech audiometry, and auditory evoked potentials. Nineteen subjects attended a music festival and completed the same tests again at Day 1, Day 3, and Day 5 after the music festival. Results: No significant relations were found between lifetime noise-exposure history and the hearing tests. Changes in biomarkers from the first session to the follow-up sessions were nonsignificant, except for speech audiometry, which showed a significant learning effect (performance improvement). Conclusions: Despite the individual variability in prefestival biomarkers, we did not observe changes related to the noise-exposure dose caused by the attended event. This can indicate the absence of noise exposure-driven CS in the study cohort, or reflect that biomarkers were not sensitive enough to detect mild CS. Future research should include a more diverse study cohort, dosimetry, and results from test-retest reliability studies to provide more insight into the relationship between recreational noise exposure and CS.

If you're a man and need to relieve yourself quickly, Bruges, Belgium is your place. Simply walk into the town square and look behind a low wall. There they are. Four urinals! Just try not to notice, from the side of the urinal structure, everyone can see you! Beyer's first encounter with a public toilette was in an Amsterdam restaurant. She saw the toilette sign and headed that way. She encountered a turn-style and noticed a coin machine on her right that required the European equivalent of $0.25. Once inside, to her surprise, a man exited one of the stalls and politely held the door open. She shyly said, \"Merci, Monsieur.\" She had just learned had initial toilette lesson--be prepared with coins and expect the unexpected!